Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin invoked one of the nation’s greatest civil rights icons to announce his time under government supervision has apparently come to an end.
“Free at last, free at last, Thank God Almighty, we are free at last,” Nagin wrote on X, quoting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “Today, after ten years I am free again. God is good. Thank you Jesus! Peace.”
The 67-year-old former businessman-turned-politician was sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2014 but was released in April 2020 as prisons looked to manage the spread of COVID-19.
Nagin spent the next two years of his sentence under “community confinement” in his home in Frisco, Tex. Generally, those under community confinement must undergo daily “accountability checks” and need passes to work, according to a report in The Advocate.
The community confinement portion of Nagin’s sentence ended March 16, 2022, but he still had to serve two years of supervision or probation. That two year stint expired the day Nagin invoked Dr. King on social media.
Nagin served two terms as the Crescent City’s mayor after his election in 2002 but his tenure was marred first by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and then later by federal corruption charges.
He was convicted of several different crimes including wire fraud, bribery and tax evasion in 2014. While his time under government supervision has ended, Nagin is still required to pay back the IRS at a rate of $1,200, as ordered by U.S. District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo.
At the current rate, Nagin should finish paying back the IRS by 2028.